American educator, the first president (1875-1901) of Johns Hopkins University.
Background
He was born in Norwich, Conn., on July 6, 1831. After receiving a B.A. at Yale in 1852, he stayed on for a year but found arrangements for graduate study in the United States highly unsatisfactory. As assistant librarian and librarian at Yale from 1856 to 1865, he sought reforms to help build "a true University." He also mapped reforms as "visitor" of the New Haven schools and as secretary of the Connecticut Board of Education.
Career
After receiving a B.A. at Yale in 1852, he stayed on for a year but found arrangements for graduate study in the United States highly unsatisfactory. As assistant librarian and librarian at Yale from 1856 to 1865, he sought reforms to help build "a true University." He also mapped reforms as "visitor" of the New Haven schools and as secretary of the Connecticut Board of Education.
From 1872 to 1875, as president of the University of California, he led a program of expansion but felt the threat of political interference. In 1875 he accepted the presidency of the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., where freedom from sectarian or political control promised greater opportunity. Gilman and the trustees hoped that Johns Hopkins, which opened in 1876, could bring the country a higher level of education. Its professors were specialized investigators, and its fellowship system supported candidates for the Ph.D. (including Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey). One of Gilman's major contributions to American higher education was the development of the graduate school, in which stress was given to seminars, laboratories, and publication. The pattern of most postgraduate institutions in the United States continues to be based on his ideas. Gilman helped design the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1889) and the School of Medicine (1893), both with standards so high as to be revolutionary. He retired from Johns Hopkins in 1901 and became the first president (1902-1904) of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, dedicated to encouraging research.